Here’s this young guy, Dan Goodwin, seemingly normal in every respect, who ends up emulating his comicbook hero, The Amazing Spider-Man, in real life!

After witnessing the tragic fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas on November 21st, 1980, Dan became a man with a mission. A mission made all the more urgent after the horrible event in New York on September 11th, 2001.

We’ve all seen the newspaper and TV accounts of Dan’s incredible feats, his scaling the outside walls of the Sears Tower in Chicago and the World Trade Center in New York. But SpiderDan (as the media dubbed him) is far more than a publicity-seeking opportunist. There has been an unflagging, altruistic purpose to his widely-heralded, attention-getting climbs. This amazing young man has elected to put his new-found fame to a most worthy cause, a cause that should be at the very top of our nation’s priorities today.

Aware of the fact that America’s skyscrapers are, and always will be, vulnerable to future terrorist attacks, Dan Goodwin has devoted his time and his fame to sponsoring the world’s first Skyscraper Defense Act. Its goal is admirable, its purpose clear, its need painfully apparent. The Skyscraper Defense Act would fund the creation and training of super elite rescue teams throughout the United States capable of rescuing victims from burning skyscrapers through the use of specially designed hovering helicopters, cables and highly trained professionals able to scale the exteriors of such buildings.

I’m proud to think that a superhero like Spider-Man, with whom I’m so closely connected, might have influenced Dan Goodwin in any way and might bear some share of the credit for the concept of the much needed and much admired Skyscraper Defense Act.

So, here’s to SpiderDan. It’s a kick to be able to welcome a real life superhero into the proud pantheon of American icons!